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Netrunner 26 lands with XLibre X11 and improved security

Debian-based Netrunner 26 Twilight now available
ⓘ Netrunner GNU/Linux
Netrunner 26 Twilight now available
After more than a year since the release of its predecessor, Netrunner 26 arrives with a new base (Debian Stable 13 Trixie), Plasma 6.3.6 and KDE 6.13.0, multiple updates for the specific components such as Samba-mounter and Artwork, yt-dlp GUI Statcher7, better hardware support, and much more.

With a history of over 15 years, Netrunner is one of the well-established Debian-based distros currently in the wild. Based on Kubuntu until the end of 2015, this piece of code has just moved from a Debian 12 Bookworm base to Debian 13 Trixie, yesterday's version 26 arriving more than a year after its predecessor. Available in the shape of a 64-bit ISO, Netrunner 26 Twilight sports the 6.16 kernel series, focusing on modern looks, up-to-date software, improved security, all while delivering a stable experience.

According to the official release notes, these are some of the highlights worth mentioning:

  • Better protection from ROP and COP/JOP attacks on amd64 and arm64 platforms.
  • Spellchecking in Qt WebEngine browsers alongside support for the BDIC Binary Hunspell Dictionary.
  • Plasma 6.3.6 and KDE Frameworks 6.13.0.
  • Pipewire and Wireplumber.
  • Stacher7, a GUI for yt-dlp.
  • Firefox and LibreOffice get plenty of translations, including Turkish and Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional).
  • Better hardware support for recent AMD and Intel GPUs, sound, and wireless chips.
  • Power-profiles-daemon for dynamic performance selection.
  • Updated specific components: Samba-mounter (rewritten for Qt 6 and PolicyKit), Artwork (new SDDM theme, updated Global Theme and Plasma theme for Plasma 6), About-extended KCM (fully compatible with Qt 6 and KF6).

In addition to the above, there are quite a few other updates, such as Qt 6.8.2, KDE Apps 25.04.3, Thunderbird 140.6.0 ESR, InkScape 1.4, VirtualBox 7.2.6-172322, VLC 3.0.23, and more. The ISO file has 3.4 GB in size and can be retrieved from this page.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2026 04 > Netrunner 26 lands with XLibre X11 and improved security
Codrut Nistor, 2026-04- 2 (Update: 2026-04- 2)